Classic Poem

O to grapple with slavery, to shake off obstructions and set myself free!

In the midst of tasks exacted by the routine of the day,
In the revel at night, in the very crown of the dance,
In the hours of sleep or at daybreat as the first sunbeams creppt in my window imploring,
Ever arousing me, ever the call renewing,
The step heard, the brush of aerial garments,
Ever my first flush strides to the threshold, the rapt gazing forth
Whose voice had called? What was the baffling cry?
I strained my eyes, I threw my ears open—
O coward me, fearing, fearing to close the door behind me, suspicious of the herald!
O coward me, creeping back to the comfortable rooms, hugging close the fire, again and again embracing, pledging, the felicities easiest to my hand!

In me desire to go, in me also desire to stay,
In me the voice doubted of, the skies threatening,
In me perpetual struggle, repeated surrender, contempt of self.

Days pass and new days come:
O deliverance! O revelation!
I was tried and lost only to be again tried and win,
I had by own act chosen prison walls to freedom,
In the ways unknown I had set my own phantoms to shake me from my ardent ideals,
But the call was never abandoned, my instinct was never dead.

Well have I treasured the dawn of release,
The melodic prodigal voice appealing, the odors of the morning in my nostrils, the haste to challenge the uncertain:
Well for my arm that it no longer hesitated
No more now had I reached the threshold than I closed the irrevocable door
Victory! the soul transported!
The call came near—I stept gravely, loyally, into the genial woods:
Had I everknown day before? here was day at last, ten thousand suns flooding the vista with light

Then I knew what it was to be with the universe alone,
Then I knew what the voice had provided for me,
Then had I become the near companion of winds and streams and ample skies,
Then had I entered by that voice long distrusted, by that figure unveiled now and ever pressing to my side,
A world immortal.
Now I do not sing songs through leaves of books: I sing them chorally with the forest leaves and field grasses,
Now I do not miss in sunbeams the thrift of their inarticulate treasures,
Now I do not button my coat against the winds: I offer myself to the contact of the winds, they flush me through with music,
Now I do not fear to embark on seas and sreams: these are now me equal partners divinely serving,
Now I do not doubt skies and earths, friendliest monitors panoplying me with love.

I go by days and nights overswept be native influences
I have lost and won, but my loss was least and my victory everything,
For now is my visitor victor, my visitor who was myself
My visitor who was wind and river, sea and sky,
My visitor who ever held me faithful through errant fears filled me with treason,
My visitor compelling the soul to immediate allegiances, to native tones setting my obedient will.
O to grapple with slavery, to shake off obstructions and set myself free!